Friday, September 28, 2007

Paul MacCready Video Available Online

When Paul B. MacCready, CCM passed away on August 28, 2007, the weather and climate community lost one of its most prestigious members. Fortunately for posterity, we have a short video (approximately 20 min) filmed in 2003: Paul MacCready: Flying on Solar Wings, in which he talks about his life and his many accomplishments and inventions. This video is available to watch on, or freely download from, the TED website.

In addition to being an AMS Certified Consulting Meteorologist, Dr. MacCready, was an AMS Honorary Member, an AMS Fellow, and an AMS Councilor. The citation for his 1984 Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Advance of Applied Meteorology reads: "for basic and applied contributions in turbulence and diffusion, air quality, cloud properties, wind power, and advances in instrumentation to monitor the atmospheric environment. In these pursuits, as in his innovation of ultralight aircraft, he has demonstrated the value of interdisciplinary vision in achieving goals."

88th AMS Annual Meeting

Meeting announcement:

The 88th Annual Meeting will be held January 20—24, 2008, at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center , New Orleans , Louisiana , with committee meetings being held at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside Hotel.

Please make your reservations early. We have rooms blocked at four hotels with special rates. Please visit our web site to obtain your reservation form and to preregister online.

Great Lakes Regional Data Exchange 2007

Meeting announcement:

Great Lakes Regional Data Exchange 2007
October 29, 2007
Westin Hotel
Ottawa , Ontario
rdx.glc.org

What is RDX?

The Great Lakes Regional Data Exchange (RDX) is a regional conference focusing on collaborative technology-based approaches to addressing Great Lakes related issues. The rapidly growing ability to collect information about the lakes and the region’s environment and infrastructure present new opportunities for science and management, but require additional measures to ensure data that are being collected are able to be shared and compared at a regional level. This conference is intended to address these needs by helping colleagues share information about their Great Lakes data collection and management programs, with a focus on finding ways to improve collaboration among organizations.

RDX 2007 in Ottawa , Ontario builds on successful conferences in 2004 and 2006, each of which drew well over 100 attendees, and several small-scale issue-focused workshops.

Who should attend RDX?

If you collect or use information regarding the Great Lakes region and have an interest in working more closely with other organizations, this is the ideal opportunity to meet with colleagues and discuss these interests. Topics include the latest in GIS, remote sensing, ecological modeling, and much more.

The conference program includes an exciting list of plenary presenters.

The conference also includes a dynamic agenda of breakout speakers.

About the Conference

The Great Lakes Regional Data Exchange 2007 conference will be held on October 29, 2007 at the Westin Hotel in Ottawa , Ontario .

The conference will include keynote speakers addressing the latest advancements in current regional and global observing systems and related technologies. It will also include breakout sessions with contributed paper covering a wide range of case studies and current activities and hands-on workshops showcasing and assisting participants in using the latest technologies for sharing their data through Web Services.

The conference is ideally placed at the beginning of a week of exciting events in Ottawa surrounding the ASPRS and CRSS 2007 Specialty Conference. Attendees can therefore take advantage of an impressive array of other conference opportunities to present their work, learn of recent advances in the field, network with others and explore a large exhibitor gallery.

Registration

Registration for this one-day event is available as a special option via the CRSS/ASPRS Specialty Conference website.

Accommodations

The conference will take place at the Westin Ottawa, near the Ottawa Congress Centre and the Rideau Centre. A discounted group block will be made available for conference attendees who pre-register.

NOAA Data and Information for a Changing Climate

Meeting announcement:

NOAA Data and Information for a Changing Climate: A Conference for Public and Private Sector Users
November 5-6, 2007
The Grove Park Inn · Asheville, NC

You are invited to participate in a very important event: NOAA Data and Information for a Changing Climate: A Conference for Public and Private Sector Users.

Given that the climate is changing now and is expected to change in the future, this event will focus on emerging data and information needs of the energy, insurance, and transportation sectors.

Register and book your hotel now at www.NOAAData.com!
Confirmed speakers include:

  • Carl Hedde, Vice President, Munich Re North America
  • Henry G. Schwartz, Jr., Ph.D., P.E., Consultant; Member, Executive Committee, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council; and Retired Chair, Sverdrup/Jacobs Civil, Inc.
  • Frank Nutter, President, Reinsurance Association of America
  • Tom Fry, President, National Ocean Industries Association
  • Robert Corell, Ph.D., Global Change Director, The Heinz Center
  • Monica Hale, Sustainability Director, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC)
  • Jayanta (Jay) Guin, Senior Vice President, Research and Modeling, AIR Worldwide
  • Thomas R. Karl, L.H.D., Director, National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Where & When
The Grove Park Inn
290 Macon Ave
Asheville, North Carolina
www.groveparkinn.com

November 5-6, 2007 Grove Park Inn Pic
Register today at www.NOAAData.com.

All participants must register via www.NOAAData.com to attend. Although registration is free, participation is on a first come, first served basis. Registration will close when the capacity limit has been reached so please be sure to register as soon as possible.

AMS Council on Priorities and Transition

The AMS Council met at AMS Headquarters in Boston 19-20 September 2007. As is usually the case, the Council's agenda was very full. One discussion topic, however, was of great importance to the weather and climate community: the planned AMS/UCAR Transition Document and the planned AMS Statement on Weather and Climate Community Priorities.

A Transition Document is prepared by AMS and UCAR every four years to benefit the incoming President, his administration, and Congress. This year AMS and UCAR have decided to complete it by March 2008, in time to be used by candidates during their presidential campaigns.

The planned Statement on Community Priorities is a response to a long-standing request from Congress that our community speak with a single voice about our highest priorities for the community as a whole. The AMS Board on Enterprise Communications has held several town hall and community meetings over the past two years to collect community input on this topic.

At its recent meeting, the AMS Council decided to go forward with both the 2008 Transition Document, and establishing a drafting team for the AMS Statement on Community Priorities, noting that both documents must be consistent with one another. Because of the early deadline for the Transition Document, work on the Community Priorities Statement is being accelerated.

The AMS Contact for the Transition Document is Bill Hooke. The UCAR contact is Jack Fellows.

The Co-Chairs of the drafting team for the AMS Statement Weather and Climate Community Priorities are Bill Hooke and Matt Parker. Enterprise Commissioner, George Frederick, will be one of the members of the drafting team.

By the way, while in Boston, the AMS Councilors and Commissioners posed for a picture outside of Cheers. Don't recognize everyone in the photo? That's OK, click here.

About This Blog

Hello. I am the Director of Enterprise Activity Support for the American Meteorological Society. Weather and Climate Community Blog is a place for me to post notes and comments about our community. All posts represent my personal thoughts. They do not necessarily represent positions of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), the AMS Council, or the AMS Commission on the Weather and Climate Enterprise.

For information about the AMS, please visit:

http://www.ametsoc.org


For information about the AMS Enterprise commission, please visit:

http://www.ametsoc.org/dl